More Christmas shopping will happen, um, after Christmas. At that point, I can figure out what to get my brother, his wife and their twin boys, so over in Virginia they can celebrate Christmas again. This won’t beat the latest Christmas celebration my family’s had: in February. Seriously. Dad was flying off of an aircraft carrier repeatedly one December, and didn’t stop until getting back in port nearly two months later. So we borrowed an artificial tree from a neighbor, and kept it up, never minding the weird looks we got from other neighbors.
Considering that I went Christmas shopping the day before the day before Christmas (i.e. yesterday), it went remarkably smoothly and calmly. People were generally in a good mood, and being courteous and responsive to courtesy (like when I was opening one door, saw a father carrying his kid in one of those big in-front baby carriers, and stepped aside and held the door open for them). And I smiled and returned the holiday cheer. Yes, it’s a happy time.
Still, I’m perverse enough that in the happy-Christmas words above, I quoted a line from the film version of The Silence of the Lambs. My mind works like that.
